“An unsecure border with Mexico is the state’s most significant vulnerability as it provides criminals and would-be terrorists from around the world a reliable means to enter Texas and the nation undetected…”

– Texas Department of Public Safety, Operation Strong Safety Report

Since before the ISIS terror attacks in Paris which claimed over 120 lives, multiple US officials and law enforcement agencies have warned that the country’s porous southern border with Mexico, along with the constant flow of illegal immigrants, put the nation at risk of a similar attack.

Texas a precursor to ISIS invasion?

Back in February, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) released a report regarding their Operation Strong Safety, a multi-agency effort reallocating law enforcement personnel and other resources to the border amid the 2014 influx of illegal aliens.

In the report, the agency admitted the “unsecure border” could be exploited by “would-be terrorists.”

“Crime has become increasingly transitory, transnational, organized, and discreet, and terrorism has become more disaggregated. An unsecure border with Mexico is the state’s most significant vulnerability as it provides criminals and would-be terrorists from around the world a reliable means to enter Texas and the nation undetected. This is especially concerning today, in light of the recent terrorist attacks and schemes around the world.”

[…]

“Illegal aliens from countries documented by the U.S. Department of State as having a known terrorism presence continue to be smuggled into and throughout Texas and the nation on a regular basis, and it is impossible to determine how many of these individuals have actually entered the U.S. undetected. Texas leads the nation in the apprehension of ‘special interest aliens’ (SIA), and there is a legitimate concern that terrorists from around the world could exploit our country’s porous Southwest border to enter the U.S. undetected, if they have not done so already.”

ISIS members have reportedly already been caught in Texas

Early last month, the director of the Texas DPS, Stephen McCraw, warned that people from countries known to have a “terrorism presence” have already been captured in Texas.

“[I]ndividuals that come across the Texas/Mexican border from countries with a known terrorism presence and the answer to that is yes,” McCraw stated when asked if any suspected ISIS terrorists had yet infiltrated the border.

“We have individuals that we’ve needed to debrief in Pashto/Dari,” the director said, referring to two languages spoken in Afghanistan. “Not a lot of Pashto and Dari speakers around.”

“But you can’t think about the last attack; you have to think of the next attack and where our vulnerabilities are,” the director urged. “So, we’re concerned about that.”

Reports also surfaced in October 2014 that several ISIS terrorists had been apprehended in South Texas.

“Islamic terrorists have entered the United States through the Mexican border and Homeland Security sources tell Judicial Watch that four have been apprehended… by federal authorities and the Texas Department of Public Safety in McAllen and Pharr,” the nonprofit watchdog group reported.

The same day Judicial Watch reported the capture of four “Islamic terrorists,” a US representative also told Fox News that the US Border Patrol had captured “at least 10 ISIS fighters” crossing over from Mexico.

“They are going to be bombing American cities coming across from Mexico,” US Rep. Duncan Hunter told “On the Record” with Greta Van Susteren. “At least ten ISIS fighters have been caught coming across the Mexican border in Texas.”

In April of this year, Judicial Watch issued another alarming report claiming ISIS terror cells were setting up across the border from El Paso, Texas in Ciudad Juarez and in Puerto Palomas across from Columbus and Deming, New Mexico.

Claiming it as their first attack on US soil, ISIS took responsibility for a shooting at an art contest in Garland, Texas, earlier this year in May, in which participants drew art depicting the prophet Mohammad.

“Two of the soldiers of the caliphate executed an attack on an art exhibit in Garland, Texas, and this exhibit was portraying negative pictures of the Prophet Mohammed,” ISIS reportedly said.

“We tell America that what is coming will be even bigger and more bitter, and that you will see the soldiers of the Islamic State do terrible things,” the group said.

In the aftermath of the Paris shootings, and following the Obama administration’s announcement that the US will take in 10,000 Syrian refugees, US lawmakers and intelligence experts again warned that such terrorism could manifest in the homeland due to “gaping holes” in the refugee vetting process.

Rep. Michael McCaul, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, highlighted that “There are a lot of holes — gaping holes” in US defenses.

“We have hundreds of Americans that have traveled” to Iraq and Syria, he said. “Many of them have come back as well. I think that’s a direct threat.”

Another lawmaker, Rep. Devin Nunes, also pointed out the US vetting process for refugees is not robust enough to stop terrorists from entering the country.

“There’s no possible way to screen them. It should be stopped immediately,” Nunes said.

“Bottom line, if you don’t want refugees, you have to go into Iraq and Syria and defeat ISIS.”

Obama administration gave over 1,500 ‘terrorists’ asylum

Late September, documents obtained by Judicial Watch revealed the Obama administration, after making changes to a federal law in 2014, made it so that more than 1,500 “terrorists” were granted asylum in the United States in 2014.

According to the government watchdog, “the administration let 1,519 ‘inadmissible’ foreigners embroiled in terrorism into the U.S. last year because the crimes were committed ‘while under duress.’”

“Before the Obama administration tweaked a federal law last year, these foreign nationals would have been banned from the country for supporting terrorist causes,” Judicial Watch reported. “But under the changes the Secretary of Homeland Security has ‘discretionary authority’ to waive certain grounds of inadmissibility relating to terrorism.”

ISIS has now vowed to attack Washington DC

The Paris attacks happened hours after Obama remarked that progress was being made in containing the “Islamic State,” and now the group has is pledging an attack on Washington DC.

“We say to the states that take part in the crusader campaign that, by God, you will have a day, God willing, like France’s and by God, as we struck France in the center of its abode in Paris, then we swear that we will strike America at its center in Washington,” a man in the latest ISIS video said.

With mounting evidence that Islamic jihadists pose a direct threat to national security, will President Obama uphold immigration policies, secure the border and more vigorously vet incoming refugees, or will he continue to ignore the warnings and risk an attack on America.